Monday, 25 January 2010

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" - Muriel Barbery
"... There´s a cleaning woman who comes to our house three hoursa day, but it´s Maman who looks after the plants. And it´s an unbelievable rigmarole. She has two watering cans, one for water with fertilizer, one for special soft water, and a spray gun with several sttings for "targeted" squirts, either "shower" or "mist". Every morning she inspects the twenty houseplats in the apartment and administers the appropriate treatment to each one. She murmurs all sorts of stuff to them, oblivious to the outside world. You can say whatever you want to Maman while she´s looking after her plants, she´ll completely ignore it. For example: "I am going to buy some drugs today and maybe go for an overdose", will get you the following answer: "The kentia´s going yellow at the tips of the leaves, too much water, not good at all."

With this we grasp the opening tenets of the paradigm: if you want to ruin your life by not listening to what other people are saying to you, look after houseplants. But that´s not all. When Maman is squirting water onto her plants, I can plainly see the hope that fills her. She thinks it´s a kind of balm that is going to penetrate the plant and bring it what it needs to prosper. It´s the same thing with the fertilizer, which she gives them by means of little sticks in the soil (in the mixture of potting soil, compost sand, and turf that she has made up idividually for each individual plant at the nursery over at the Porte d´Auteuil). So, Maman, feeds her plants the way she feeds her children: water and fertilizer for the kentia, green beans and vitamin C for us. That´s the heart of the paradigm: concentrate on the object, convey all the nutritional elements from the outside to the inside and, as they make their way inside, they will cause the object to grow and prosper. A little "pschtt" on its leaves and there´s the plant ready to go out into the world. You look at it with a mixture of anxiety and hope, you know how fragile life can be, you worry about accidents but, at the same time, you are satisfied with the knowledge that you have done what you were supposed to do, you´ve played your nurturing role: you feel reassured and, for a time, things feel safe. That´s how Maman views life: a succession of conjuring acts, as useless as a "pschtt" with the spray gun, which provide a fleeting illusion of security.
It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin C, however much they nurture us, cannot save lives, nor sustainour souls."

Friday, 22 January 2010

By faith Abraham received the promise that in his seed all races of the world would be blessed. Time passed, the possibility was there, Abraham believed; time passed, it became unreasonable, Abraham believed. There was in the world one who had an expectation, time passed, the evening drew nigh, he was not paltry enough to have forgotten his expectation, therefore he too shall not be forgotten. Then he sorrowed, and sorrow did not deceive him as life had done, it did for him all it could, in the sweetness of sorrow he possessed his delusive expectation. It is human to sorrow, human to sorrow with them that sorrow, but it is greater to believe, more blessed to contemplate the believer.
******************
Z wiarą przyjął Abraham obietnicę, że w pokoleniu jego błogosławione będą wszystkie narody ziemi. Czas mijał, mijały możliwości, ale Abraham wierzył. Czas mijał, nie można było go odwrócić, Abraham wierzył. Był sam na świecie, ale miał swoje Oczekiwanie. Czas mijał i już się miało ku wieczorowi, ale on nie był na tyle nędzny, aby zapomnieć o swym oczekiwaniu, i dlatego nie powinien być zapomniany. Smucił się i smutek go nie oszukał, jak oszukało życie; smutek zrobił dla niego wszystko, co mógł, i w słodyczy smutku Abraham zachował obietnicę pełną rozczarowań. Ludzką jest rzeczą smutek, ludzką jest rzeczą smucić się z tymi, którzy się smucą, ale większą rzeczą jest wierzyć, bardziej błogo oglądać wierzącego.

Thursday, 21 January 2010

Incantations were not wanting
Over Sampo and o'er Louhi,
Sampo growing old in singing,

Louhi ceasing her enchantment.
In the songs died wise Wipunen,
At the games died Lemminkainen.
There are many other legends,
Incantations that were taught me,
That I found along the wayside,
Gathered in the fragrant copses,
Blown me from the forest branches,
Culled among the plumes of pine-trees,

Scented from the vines and flowers,

Whispered to me as I followed
Flocks in land of honeyed meadows,
Over hillocks green and golden,
After sable-haired Murikki,
And the many-colored Kimmo.
Many runes the cold has told me,
Many lays the rain has brought me,
Other songs the winds have sung me;
Many birds from many forests,
Oft have sung me lays n concord
Waves of sea, and ocean billows,
Music from the many waters,
Music from the whole creation,
Oft have been my guide and master.
Sentences the trees created,
Rolled together into bundles,
Moved them to my ancient dwelling,

On the sledges to my cottage,
Tied them to my garret rafters,
Hung them on my dwelling-portals,
Laid them in a chest of boxes,
Boxes lined with shining copper.
Long they lay within my dwelling
Through the chilling winds of winter,
In my dwelling-place for ages.

How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!
******************************
“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”